Five Things We Learned from the Ravens' 23-20 loss to the Buffalo Bills

Timothy T. Ludwig, USA TODAY Sports

The Ravens began in eerily similar fashion to their awful first quarter the previous week against the Houston Texans. Three penalties swamped their first drive. Joe Flacco threw an interception on their second. But the Ravens defense twice stopped the Bills in the red zone and held them to field goals. When Chris Canty stripped Buffalo quarterback E.J. Manuel to set up a touchdown pass by Flacco, another Ravens resurrection seemed possible. Ugh uh. The Ravens kept making mistakes -- a dropped pass by Ed Dickson leading to interception, more penalties from the offensive line -- and the Bills, to their credit, seized a healthy percentage of the opportunities created. The halftime stats painted a disheartening picture for the Ravens. The Bills outgained them 222-121, with 11 first downs to the Ravens' five. The story was even worse in the running game, where the Bills averaged 4.6 yards on 25 carries to the Ravens' 2.1 yards on seven carries. The Bills brutalized a defensive front that had allowed the Ravens to get away with sluggish starts in home games against the Texans and Cleveland Browns. It was easy to gloss over the terrible start against Houston given the end result. Ravens players had no explanations and few were demanded. After three weeks, however, this trend has become too troubling to ignore. We all cherish resilience and a good comeback. But percentages ultimately rule in professional sports. And teams that repeatedly dig holes tend to be, no gentle way to put this, losers.

The Ravens began in eerily similar fashion to their awful first quarter the previous week against the Houston Texans. Three penalties swamped their first drive. Joe Flacco threw an interception on their second. But the Ravens defense twice stopped the Bills in the red zone and held them to field goals. When Chris Canty stripped Buffalo quarterback E.J. Manuel to set up a touchdown pass by Flacco, another Ravens resurrection seemed possible. Ugh uh. The Ravens kept making mistakes -- a dropped pass by Ed Dickson leading to interception, more penalties from the offensive line -- and the Bills, to their credit, seized a healthy percentage of the opportunities created. The halftime stats painted a disheartening picture for the Ravens. The Bills outgained them 222-121, with 11 first downs to the Ravens' five. The story was even worse in the running game, where the Bills averaged 4.6 yards on 25 carries to the Ravens' 2.1 yards on seven carries. The Bills brutalized a defensive front that had allowed the Ravens to get away with sluggish starts in home games against the Texans and Cleveland Browns. It was easy to gloss over the terrible start against Houston given the end result. Ravens players had no explanations and few were demanded. After three weeks, however, this trend has become too troubling to ignore. We all cherish resilience and a good comeback. But percentages ultimately rule in professional sports. And teams that repeatedly dig holes tend to be, no gentle way to put this, losers. (Timothy T. Ludwig, USA TODAY Sports)

With two productive backs, the NFL's best blocking fullback and an experienced offensive line, the Ravens certainly didn't expect to have one of the weakest running attacks in the league. But four weeks into the season, that's reality. According to the analytics website Football Outsiders, the offensive line ranked fifth worst in overall run blocking entering Sunday's game. The Ravens had been stuffed for runs of no gain or lost yardage more than every team but one. Ray Rice was back in the lineup Sunday after missing a week with a thigh injury. But that hardly mattered. Neither he nor Bernard Pierce had any room to run in the first half. Even when Rice managed a nice gain in the second quarter, it was called back because of a holding penalty on Marshal Yanda. The Ravens simply abandoned the run when they needed to rally in the second half. If they needed a reminder of the value in establishing a running game, Buffalo quarterback E.J. Manuel delivered it with a beautiful 42-yard touchdown pass off a play-action fake in the second quarter. Manuel's fake worked as well as it did because it followed a succession of effective power runs. At this point, why would a defense bite that hard on a Flacco fake? No one on the Ravens offensive line is having an outstanding season, not even Yanda, who had been the best right guard in the league for several seasons. The Ravens' blockers have protected Flacco decently but have drawn too many penalties and failed to generate the requisite push on running downs. This has become an alarming weakness for a team that figured to struggle more in the passing game, given the losses of Anquan Boldin and Dennis Pitta.

With two productive backs, the NFL's best blocking fullback and an experienced offensive line, the Ravens certainly didn't expect to have one of the weakest running attacks in the league. But four weeks into the season, that's reality. According to the analytics website Football Outsiders, the offensive line ranked fifth worst in overall run blocking entering Sunday's game. The Ravens had been stuffed for runs of no gain or lost yardage more than every team but one. Ray Rice was back in the lineup Sunday after missing a week with a thigh injury. But that hardly mattered. Neither he nor Bernard Pierce had any room to run in the first half. Even when Rice managed a nice gain in the second quarter, it was called back because of a holding penalty on Marshal Yanda. The Ravens simply abandoned the run when they needed to rally in the second half. If they needed a reminder of the value in establishing a running game, Buffalo quarterback E.J. Manuel delivered it with a beautiful 42-yard touchdown pass off a play-action fake in the second quarter. Manuel's fake worked as well as it did because it followed a succession of effective power runs. At this point, why would a defense bite that hard on a Flacco fake? No one on the Ravens offensive line is having an outstanding season, not even Yanda, who had been the best right guard in the league for several seasons. The Ravens' blockers have protected Flacco decently but have drawn too many penalties and failed to generate the requisite push on running downs. This has become an alarming weakness for a team that figured to struggle more in the passing game, given the losses of Anquan Boldin and Dennis Pitta. (Karl Merton Ferron, Baltimore Sun)